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Kids Friendly Cities

For those of you who thought this story was going to be about baby goats living in urban environments, you might be disappointed. Kid friendly cities is about designing for the needs of children in public spaces. It’s not a new concept of course, the well-known town planner Jane Jacobs wrote about how children and teenagers were being designed out of public spaces of American Cities in the early 1960’s (amongst other things).

Image credit: rbg.vic.gov.au

Anyway, when we came across this interesting blog from ‘Sustainable Calgary’with six fast facts on what kids need in cities, we thought we’d ask ourselves whether we've seen some interesting child friendly public spaces around Australia that might address some of these needs. A few that come to mind include the Children’s Garden at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Melbourne. It’s a good example of a free public space where children can interact with nature - it comes complete with a mini-watercourse for floating twigs down the river. The bronze pigs in Rundle Mall (a bronze sculpture of four very cute life-sized pigs installed back in 1999) became a hit with children shopping with their parents in the Adelaide CBD and the interactive fountain ‘Water Labyrinth in Forest Place, Perth.

We’re interested to hear about your experiences as former children or current parents in our cities. Are planners and urban designers doing better job of designing for kids in public space lately? What are some great child-friendly spaces in your neighbourhood?